Day 14 - Off to Devil's Tower

An early start today as we had a long trek to the Devil’s Tower in the high plains state of Wyoming.  First stop was Deadwood, centre of the 1870’s gold rush and made famous by the activities of Wild Bill Hickok.  I have to note that I was disappointed as I’d expected an authentic Wild West town on the style of Sovereign Hill in Ballarat.  Evidently, the town burned down in the 1870’s and was rebuilt largely in brick.  This is untypical of the area and, although many of the public buildings had a certain elegance, it was not a cowboy town.  The main street tries to capitalise on its lawless past with at least two saloons claiming to be the very place where Wild Bill was shot.  We made the climb up Boot Hill to see the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.  No rustic wooden crosses here but a fine view over the town.  Back in the middle of things we took in the delights of the main street and grabbed a steak sandwich for lunch.

Moving north from Deadwood the valleys began to open out and the floors widened.  Plenty of new log cabin style buildings were visible but the most striking feature was the almost 3-D quality of the landscape, created I guess by the combination of light, clarity and the spacing of the spruce trees.  Eventually, we turned west onto our old friend, Highway 90 and the landscape began to flatten out.  This is cattle grazing country and enormous enclosures of rather tired looking grass supported herds of healthy looking cows.  No feed-lots here and black cattle, presumably Aberdeen Angus seemed to be in the majority.  After three hours of driving the Devil’s Tower, made famous in the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” came into view.  A magnificent spectacle it is and our campsite was directly at its foot.  Technically the feature is a laccolith but the Indian story is more interesting.  Seven young indian girls were pursued by a grizzly.  They climbed on the rock in their attempts to escape and the rock, haring their prayers for help, lifted them into the sky where they became the Pleiades constellation.  The grizzly was left clawing at the rock, hence the vertical ‘scratches’ evident to this day.  We waked around the base of the rock and I went out on my own to take a longer track back to the camp.  Lots of photos were taken.